After the Cabaret (28 page)

‘Well, I'm growing tedious in my old age but you, Greg, will never have heard a “Communist truth”, in other words, a lie, nor did you ever live in Hitler's Germany. Now that was a place for lies …'

He trailed off, then began to speak again.

‘It's odd, isn't it, that you came here as an ambitious young man with a project you saw as only half serious – it was a career move, you'll admit that, I'm sure. And how your very presence seems to have stirred up all those old things that were lying quietly at the bottom of the pond.

‘But – you'll be impatient and I'm worrying about how long the tape will last, so let's return to the past, to Sally's marriage which is not a long story, God knows.

‘Well, Theo began to take Sally out again. Pontifex Street thought little of it. We had seen Theo's returns and courtships before. Then one evening, early, we were sitting quietly, listening to some music, when in came Sally and Theo, and Sally opened her eyes and arms wide and said, “Darlings, you'll never guess. We're engaged!”

‘This astonished everyone, but we all congratulated her and Briggs was kind enough to open a bottle of champagne he had been saving. Theo phoned his wicked old father, who was sitting in his crumbling castle in Ireland, drunk, I suppose. Sally put off making the call to her family. Then the happy pair went off to La Vie to tell Cora.

‘After they'd gone Briggs said, “I don't believe this. Why?”

‘“It must be the baby, Gisela,” Julia said.

‘“Ha, ha,” said Pym, and he turned on the gramophone again.

‘Cora came in not long after, in a beaded dress, and sat down comfortably. It was a surprise because Cora was not one to drop in. And she said, cheerfully, “I expect you've heard the news. Isn't it lovely?”

‘“Incredibly lovely,” said Pym.

‘“So nice for Sally – everything she ever wanted, a dream come true,” she said. “I shouldn't be surprised, though, if her fortune doesn't come into it somewhere.”

‘Briggs said, “Ah,” and Pym opened his eyes wide.

‘“Yes?” he said, getting ready to enjoy himself.

‘“Well,” Cora told us, “this is the story. I had it from a general. Geneviève Jackson-Bowles, you see, was one of three daughters. Her sister Madeleine married a doctor or a surgeon called du Tour, whom nobody had ever heard of, and then the second sister, Clothilde, married an industrialist, a self-made man of no family. Socially, all three girls' marriages were a disaster, of course – but Jerome Vincent, Clothilde's husband, was very successful and also very wise. In nineteen thirty-nine he put the
bulk of his money in a bank in Switzerland. He was a patriot, but he understood Hitler and wasn't confident that the French would be able to withstand him. And a year later he died. About a week or so ago, so did his wife, Sally's aunt. They were childless,” she said. By now Pym was laughing loudly. Cora ignored this. She went on, “I shouldn't be at all surprised if Clothilde hasn't left her nieces and nephews a lot of money. Perhaps Sally doesn't know yet, but I wonder if Theo has got wind of it?” And then she, too, started to smile for Briggs was grinning and Pym laughing his head off. Julia was looking rather annoyed at the thought of Sally's being an heiress. Briggs, though, said, “Poor old Sally. Theo is a vile deceiver. However, at least she'll be able to afford to replace the champagne.”

Bruno continued, ‘So Sally was rich. Her mother phoned next day to give her the news. Geneviève was angry because she and her sister Madeleine might have expected to get Clothilde's money. Even worse, Sally's sister Betty had been left nothing. It seemed Clothilde had changed her will after Sally's mission to France and had left her money only to Sally and her two cousins, Benoît and Charles. All were, as she put it in the document, fighting for France. However, the money was in Switzerland and the will in occupied France, so for a long time there was nothing. Sally said that she'd split the money with Betty, or give it all to her mother if Geneviève felt so strongly about it.

‘In the meantime, though, Sally's father advanced her enough funds to buy a house immediately. Sally bought a fairly run-down place in the unfashionable area people
then called “south of the park”, the park being Hyde Park, of course. Theo was displeased. He would have preferred getting a short lease on a smart flat in a smart area. But Sally told him she had Gisela to think of and that a flat wasn't suitable. He sulked, but I think he decided that this was no time to start a fight with an heiress and must have thought that he could eventually persuade Sally to get something better.

‘In the end Gisela didn't come to London. Sally's mother had a change of heart and decided the marriage would get off to a better start unencumbered by a child Sally barely knew and Theo had not seen at all. Of course, Geneviève was quite pleased by the marriage. By that stage almost any marriage of Sally's would have soothed her mother and the marriage to Theo was better than she could have hoped for. Theo, though he had no money, had a career on
The Times
and was of quite good family.

‘The wedding took place at a register office on a cold January day in nineteen forty-four. It was supposed to be quiet, but by the time Pontifex Street turned out and Sally's anarchist friends from Kennington, her workmates from the Post Office, Vi and her brothers and quite a lot of the clientele from La Vie, including Cora, of course, it became rather noisy.

‘Sally's sister was quite cross, actually, and she and her husband made unpleasant faces in the wedding pictures. They were still annoyed about the money. The pictures were a little odd because they were taken by an aircraftsman more accustomed to taking reconnaissance pictures from a plane. But I still have a photogragh
somewhere of Sally, looking very happy and excited, in a silly hat with a veil, arm in arm with Theo and flanked by Adrian Pym and Geoffrey Forbes. An historic photograph, for ten years later Pym and Forbes were running like hell for Moscow with the British authorities behind them.

‘Briggs, Pym, Charles Denham and Forbes organised a sweepstake on how long the marriage would last. I joined in and drew three months.'

‘Is there nothing at all to eat?' Theo Fitzpatrick was demanding of his wife on a gloomy winter's afternoon a month after the wedding. They were standing in the depressing sitting room of the house Sally had bought. The original lino was still on the floor. A small fire, made mostly of coal dust, smouldered in the grate. The view of the houses on the other side of the street was masked by grimy net curtains and the Edwardian wallpaper was coming off in patches.

Sally was lying on the sofa. Her friends Ricardo and Antonia were crouched in a wool rug near the fire. Antonia held a guitar but had stopped playing when Theo came in. Beyond the sofa stood a big table, with a typewriter and many papers and books. In a corner some shirts were drying on a wooden airer.

The Fitzpatricks were living on only two floors of the house. Downstairs, the basement was cold and damp; aloft, the roof leaked into the upper rooms.

‘There's a saucepan of beetroot soup on the stove,' Sally said. ‘The butcher gave me some bones. Wasn't that nice of him?'

‘Is there anything else?' he asked.

‘We've eaten all our rations.'

‘God, Sally. Other people make them last. Or couldn't you have got something under the counter?'

‘Vi's brother's promised me a tin of ham,' she said. ‘I can't do any more, Theo. You know I don't like getting things other people can't have.'

‘How very high-minded. Especially as Simcox's donations are knocked off at the docks. Well, I'm going out for a meal. You coming?'

She shook her head and he went out. He had not taken off his overcoat. This caused an awkward silence. Sally said to Ricardo, ‘Marriage is rather amazing. I never realised it involved so much housekeeping. It's like some contract you sign thinking it's one thing and it turns out to be another.'

‘With a person who turns out to be another,' Antonia remarked. ‘But perhaps, as you would say, Theo only needs some re-education?'

‘Only!' exclaimed Sally. ‘I've spoken to him again and again. I think he believes there's an invisible servant living here and doing everything. My responsibility is to make sure this servant does her work. He feels better living in his imaginary world, with the imaginary servant, because that way he doesn't have to admit there's no one here but me to wash his clothes or cook. I'm fed up with it. It isn't fair. He's only been sitting in Baker Street, turning
over a few secret documents, and I've been at work since seven thirty.'

Sally had given up her Post Office job when she moved away from Pontifex Street and had found employment in a small factory half a mile away. This produced cartridge cases, as it had since 1915.

The doorbell rang and Sally ran to answer it. She found Vi on the step in a headscarf, trousers and a mac holding the hand of her young brother. ‘Ted turned up with a tin of ham and four cans of fruit for you,' she said. ‘I rushed straight round with it.'

‘Goodie – let's eat,' said Sally. The war-time bread was grey, and Vi said she'd kill for a tomato, but they all enjoyed the soup and ham, except Jack, who said it tasted horrible and he'd rather have Spam.

‘Fancy – he's forgotten what ham tastes like!' Vi exclaimed. ‘And he's never seen a banana – well, it's only food,' she added bravely. Nevertheless, she looked thin and pale. They all did.

‘What a pity Theo went off like that,' Sally reflected, as she made tea. ‘But I suppose you can't blame him. I can't manage properly. The meals, the laundry, the dust – there's always something to do. I'm beginning to see why my mother was always so agitated. And she had maids and a cook.'

‘You should tell him he's lucky not to be dead,' Vi announced. Archie, her pre-war fiance, was now presumed dead. Poor Mrs Hedges's husband had been killed the year before at El Alamein. It seemed likely, though, that Ted would marry her, but she had yet to get over
the guilt of having fallen in love with Ted before her husband's death.

‘I don't think Theo really understands about queues and things,' Sally said mournfully.

‘He must see them,' Vi remarked bluntly. ‘He's got eyes in his head. His mind's on higher things, I suppose. Mind you, Sally, if I had any choice I'd never have moved into this old-fashioned dirt-trap. I think I'm going to marry this Yank I'm going around with. His parents have got an Italian delicatessen in New York. It's like a grocer's. They've got fridges and proper kitchens and modern bathrooms – I wake up at night thinking about it.'

‘Be careful of an Italian son and his mother,' Antonia warned. ‘No woman is good enough for an Italian son.'

But Vi, who had stolen a glance at Sally's face, dropped the subject of her American boyfriend. She suspected that Sally had suddenly thought of Eugene. Small wonder, thought Vi, now that Theo Fitzpatrick had turned out to be just as bad a husband as she, Vi, had always suspected he would.

She changed the subject and said pleadingly, ‘Sally, Vic's got a forty-eight-hour pass and we want to get down to Brighton. Ted and Lou Hedges can look after Jack, but I need someone to do my turn at La Vie tonight. Will you? Cora said she'd love to see you again.'

‘Oh, I wouldn't mind,' said Sally. ‘But I don't think Theo would like it.'

‘He doesn't seem to mind you doing nine-hour shifts at the ammunition works,' retorted Vi.

‘That's for the war effort,' Sally said diffidently.

Vi could feel the approval of Sally's Spanish friends, who might have been bomb-throwing anarchists with no decent standards and not even married, but seemed quite nice anyway and were certainly loyal friends. ‘Part of the effort is cheering people up,' she said. ‘Come on, Sally. Please. You'd be doing me a big favour. You can have the pay, for what it's worth.'

‘Oh, all right,' Sally said. ‘It's only once. I'll dig out my dress. Are you coming?' she asked the other two, but they said they would stay behind to finish an urgent pamphlet. So Sally ran upstairs, changed, and they left together. Sally, Vi and Jack got a bus into the centre of London.

‘You still haven't sent for Gisela, then?' Vi asked.

‘No, it's the bombing. And I don't really want her here.'

Vi took a deep breath. ‘I don't want to be rude, Sally, but you don't act like Gisela's your child at all.'

‘She's not,' Sally told her. They were going down Bayswater Road, past the park.

‘She's not?' Vi repeated, hardly able to believe what she was hearing.

‘Gisela's Jewish,' Sally said flatly. ‘Half Jewish, actually. I had to bring her here from Germany, but at first I didn't dare say who she was in case the Germans invaded. I was afraid of what would happen to her if they did and they found out her father was Jewish. I let everybody assume she was mine. That way, if we were beaten she'd stand the same chance of survival as anybody else. Of course, with me being a Communist, Gisela was better off away from me with my parents. Not that I wanted
to take care of her, anyway. It was bad enough getting her here.'

‘Well, I'm damned,' said Vi. ‘I've got to hand it to you, Sally. You're full of surprises. Poor little thing. Where are her parents?'

‘Still in Germany. I wish I knew where. Listen,' she said, ‘I'm only telling you this because there won't be an invasion now. But I don't want it to go any further. I don't suppose you could ask Vic to get me some nylons, could you? I haven't got any stockings left.'

‘Course I will,' Vi told her. ‘But I can't guarantee anything. Whoops! Come on, Jack, it's our stop.' She and her brother got up. ‘Cheerio. Don't do anything I wouldn't do.'

‘Just ask about the stockings.'